Mj's Message: Bulls 107, Knicks 86

Payback A Breeze For Bulls

New York Turns In A Lackluster Effort

March 22, 1996|By Terry Armour, Tribune Staff Writer.

In the end, it all turned out to be so anticlimactic.

Scottie Pippen returned to the Bulls' lineup on Thursday to face the New York Knicks after missing the team's previous five games with various aches and pains. His comeback ended up being nowhere near as dramatic as Michael Jordan's return to basketball last year.

Pippen wanted to be a part of the big payback game, helping the Bulls exact revenge on the Knicks for that spanking 12 days earlier in New York.

As it turned out, Pippen could have taken another couple of days off. The Bulls got even with those new and improved Knicks with what ended up being an easy 107-86 victory in front of another sellout crowd at the United Center.

"It wasn't that easy," said Toni Kukoc, starting his sixth straight game, this time at power forward in place of the suspended Dennis Rodman. "But in the second half, we pretty much had the game in control."

The Knicks handed the Bulls (60-7) their worst defeat of the season, 104-72, on March 10 in New York. They were supposed to be the most serious challenge to the Bulls' undefeated record at home for the remainder of the season. Instead, the Knicks (38-27), who beat the Indiana Pacers in New York on Wednesday, did not resemble the spirited bunch that dominated the Bulls in Jeff Van Gundy's first victory as Don Nelson's replacement.

They hung with the Bulls throughout the first quarter and the first few minutes of the second quarter. But the Bulls had a 20-point halftime lead and kept their lead in double-digits the rest of the way, going up by 30 points, 102-72, with 3:55 to go in the game when John Salley (12 points, eight rebounds) split a pair of free throws.

The Bulls went on to handily improve to 34-0 at the United Center, winning their 41st straight game at home dating back to last season. Pippen ended up playing just 26 minutes, scoring six points and grabbing six rebounds. No problem. Jordan led the Bulls with a game-high 36 points--26 in the first half--and led them in rebounding (11) for the fourth straight game. Every Bull scored, with Kukoc also posting a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

It turned out to be too easy with the Bulls outrebounding the Knicks 57-33. It didn't hurt matters that Jordan set out to singlehandedly exact revenge on New York, snapping its four-game winning streak.

"He wanted to send a message to New York that this is still an intense rivalry," said Bulls coach Phil Jackson. "And that what they did in New York will not happen again."

Jordan admitted Jackson was right.

"They were coming in here to see if they could win another one and put some doubts in our minds," Jordan said. "We wanted to come out and do the same thing to them."

They did it with defense. Patrick Ewing led the Knicks with 20 points on 9-of-19 shooting, but New York shot just 35.3 percent (30 of 85) from the field. The Knicks were 6 of 20 (30 percent) from the three-point arc.

"We did a good job on their outside shooters, which was really one of the keys for us," Jackson said. "You know Patrick is going to get his."

Ewing was talking like Thursday's victory may have been a fluke.

"It's not that the Bulls are too tough," Ewing said. "We were there nip and tuck with them for most of the first half. But then they gave us that overhand right punch and we fell back and never recovered."